Perturabo
of Chaos]] Perturabo, sometimes called the Lord of Iron, is the Primarch of the Iron Warriors Traitor Legion, one of the original twenty Space Marine Legions. He and his IV Legion sided with Chaos during the Horus Heresy and he has since ascended to Daemon Prince status. Perturabo, like his Iron Warriors, had a natural affinity towards the intensive use of technology in combat and a cold, emotionless logic when dealing with others, but he lacked faith in either the Emperor or the Chaos Gods to whom he later swore his soul. Perturabo was a master of siege warfare, considered the most skilled in this area of all the Primarchs. His greatest rival amongst the other Primarchs was Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists, who was believed to be the greatest builder of siege defences in the Imperium. Perturabo currently resides within the Eye of Terror on the Daemon World of Medrengard. History Origins 's sketch of Perturabo, the Lord of Iron, Primarch of the Iron Warriors Legion; illustration taken from Carpinus' Speculum Historiale]] When the Primarchs were scattered across the galaxy from the Emperor's gene-laboratory beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains on Terra by the Chaos Gods, Perturabo landed on a Civilised World named Olympia. Perturabo grew up on the mountainous planet that was divided into constantly warring city-states. He was discovered climbing the mountains below the Olympian city-state of Lochos. The city guards, having realised this was no ordinary child, brought him before Dammekos, the ruling Tyrant of Lochos. Dammekos was intrigued by the strange child and brought him into his household and treated him as part of his family. But Perturabo never fully accepted his lot, never truly trusted the Olympians and refused to return any affection given him by his adopted father. Dammekos spent plenty of time with his new son, but never received any affection in return. There was a mysterious explanation for Perturabo’s inherent mistrust, unknown to anyone but himself. Upon reaching the summit after climbing the rain-slick cliff, the exhausted youth had peered towards the heavens and gazed upon a strange, nebulous stellar maelstrom erupting across a corner of the heavens. When he inquired of the Tyrant’s guards whether they could see the strange phenomenon, the bewildered guards replied that they could not. For the rest of Perturabo’s life, this maelstrom would continue to look down upon the Primarch; making him feel as if it judged and measured his worth and spied on his every movement. A life lived beneath its cold scrutiny made him brooding and loath to offer his trust, ever-watchful and aware of its baleful glare. It would be over two standard centuries later before he found a reason to venture into this strange star maelstrom’s mercurial depths, a galactic phenomena whose name he would one coin, a name that would one day strike fear into the hearts of all those that heard it. This stellar maelstrom, in truth a giant rift between realspace and the Immaterium, would one day be known as the Eye of Terror. Many Olympians saw Perturabo as a particularly cold and brooding child, though the fact that he was a genetically engineered superhuman who had been mysteriously thrown onto a far-off world with no idea of his origins or purpose was certainly not conducive to the development of a trusting nature. Despite his aloof demeanour, Perturabo learned from the culture in which he found himself the arts of the siege, for Olympia’s myriad warring city-states afforded plenty of opportunity to study both the theory and the practise of this highly specialised branch of warfare. In time, the Emperor of Mankind arrived on Olympia as part of the Great Crusade and informed Perturabo of his true place in the wider galaxy. After his rediscovery by the Imperium, the young Primarch was brought to Terra to learn from his father about his chosen destiny and to meet some of his brother Primarchs. During his studies, Perturabo learned of the ancient people known as the Firenzii. Captivated by the history of the past, Perturabo and his brother Magnus of the Thousand Sons Legion spent many months together in search of the buried secrets of Mankind's past glories that had been swept away in the chaos of the Age of Strife, known by Terrans as Old Night. It was the esoteric writings of the world’s former masters that most interested him. He cared more for the ancient philosophies of the lost civilisations of Terra than their mechanical wonders, but it was a heady time of exploration for both Primarchs. Perturabo got along well with his brother Magnus, for both Primarchs shared a love of learning, and a hunger to know new things. Perturabo was not a Primarch to whom the natural ebb and flow of friendship came easily. His friendship was not easily achieved, but his loyalty, once won, was as unbreakable as the hardest iron. Or so he had thought, until time would show him that even the hardest iron could break if worn thin enough. Oath of Moment In time the Emperor was ready to send his son back out into the galaxy to help with the galactic conquest known as the Great Crusade, the effort to reunite all of Mankind beneath the rule of the newborn Imperium of Man. Perturabo, like his fellow Primarchs before him, ascended to the crenellated peak of the Astartes Tower to swear his Oath of Moment. He made the long ascent upwards to the polished marble spire, the night before leaving Terra for a life of war. Each step required a superhuman effort of will, determination and courage. It was not simply a physical ascent, but a challenge to the heart and intellect, a psychic communion with the Emperor himself that tested the very boundaries of a warrior’s endurance. Perturabo pledged his devotion to the fledgling Imperium, and assumed the mantle of Primarch and commander of the IV Space Marine Legion, whom he renamed the Iron Warriors. According to established practise, the Primarch was declared lord of the world on which he had been raised, effectively deposing his adoptive father, the Tyrant of Lochus, as the most powerful ruler on the world. Given command of the IV Legion which had been created from his own genome, Perturabo order the Iron Warriors to begin the process of inducting new recruits from the most able candidates amongst the peoples of Olympia. Dammekos is said to have spent his remaining few years gathering forces to attempt to retake his power and overthrow Perturabo and the Imperium's rule of Olympia. Dammekos failed in these efforts at rebellion, but created a current of anti-Imperial political unrest among the people of Olympia which would come to haunt Perturabo and his Iron Warriors later. Great Crusade ]] After his submission to the Emperor, Perturabo led his Iron Warriors in their first operation of the Great Crusade under his command: a lightning assault against the world of Justice Rock and its ruling Black Judges which lay near to Olympia. They succeeded in bringing the world into Imperial Compliance. The Iron Warriors went on to erect citadels throughout the regions of the galaxy they fought in and conquered for the Imperium. Small numbers of Iron Warriors were left behind at these outposts to serve as Imperial garrisons at the command of the Emperor, but Perturabo resented being forced to split his Legion, unlike the other Primarchs' forces. As time went on, the Iron Warriors found themselves stereotyped within the Imperium, even by other Space Marine Legions, as being the best Imperial force for undertaking sieges and garrison duty. Eventually the Iron Warriors were so worn out and frustrated by the constant grinding slaughter of siege warfare that they simply began to enjoy the killing they had to do when a besieged opponent refused to surrender. Racharus Tactical Squad during the Great Crusade]] The Iron Warriors soon proved themselves amongst the most able siege troops in the Emperor’s armies. Perturabo was possessed of a keen, cold, and calculating mind well-suited to the highly technical aspects of such warfare. Furthermore, he was gifted with an affinity for technology, and was able to debate the finer points of the most esoteric technological arts with the highest placed Adepts of the Mechanicum. The Iron Warriors received cross training on Mars, further refining their siege specialisation, until only the Imperial Fists of Rogal Dorn could equal their expertise. World after world that rejected the new future for Mankind vested in the Imperial Truth espoused by the Emperor’s Iterators capitulated when confronted with the prospect of a protracted siege by the Iron Warriors. In this way, countless worlds were brought to Imperial Compliance that would otherwise have been devastated in bitter, and ultimately pointless war if not for the IV Legion's brutal reputation. There are apocryphal accounts that it might well have been the Warmaster Horus who kept the IV Legion in this role in the last days of the Great Crusade. Horus knew that the strains and frustrations engendered by constant siege warfare would allow him to more easily sway the mind of Perturabo towards his cause and the service of Chaos as the Iron Warriors' Primarch grew increasingly resentful of his Legion's assigned duties. It is widely acclaimed in Imperial legend that Perturabo was greatly envious of Rogal Dorn, the Primarch of the Imperial Fists Legion. Perturabo was annoyed by Dorn's constant reminders of the perfection of the defences created by the Imperial Fists for the Imperial Palace on Terra at the Emperor's command. The other Primarchs also kept Perturabo at an emotional distance. This coolness on their part might have been because of Perturabo's supreme command of his Legion's technology and siege tactics, far in advance of anything the other Primarchs were comfortable with or able to emulate with their own forces. Perturabo is referred to as the "comrade" who devised the best plan to avoid the defences of Overdogg Mashogg, an Ork Warboss under attack by Leman Russ, Primarch of the Space Wolves, and Jaghatai Khan, Primarch and Khan of the White Scars. Yet Perturabo appears to have grown ever more resentful of his role during the course of the Great Crusade, and perhaps in an effort to prove his superiority over Dorn and his other brother Primarchs, he accepted ever more arduous planetary siege and assault missions on behalf of his Legion. Another prime example is the Compliance of the Araaki Spiral, a joint Imperial Compliance campaign conducted by the Iron Warriors, Imperial Fists, Dark Angels and White Scars Legions in a region of space known as the Araaki Spiral. The Araakites were well-versed in the art of building fortresses, and their strongholds were dug deep around narrow passes, remote hilltops and natural barriers in the landscape. Once again, the Iron Warriors were sent to a resistant star system to conduct brutal siege-warfare against formidable fortress-builders. The Araakites knew their craft well and the campaign to take their world for the Imperium proved both bitter and hostile. It would take many years for the IV Legion to regain its former strength from the losses sustained during the drawn-out war of attrition that its Astartes suffered in the Araaki Spiral. In the wake of the inevitable Imperial victory in the region, great works of art and heroic verse were composed, celebrating the courage of the other Space Marine Legions, but nowhere in the reams of poetry and artwork were the grim labours of the Iron Warriors judged worthy of note. Only in a predella to a larger work painted by a notable Imperial artisan were the warriors of the IV Legion displayed; illustrating a lone Iron Warriors Apothecary removing the gene-seed of a dying Iron Warriors Legionary as the flag of the IV Legion's greatest rivals, the Imperial Fists, flew over a captured fortress. Perturabo sought out the artist to procure the piece for himself, only to have it put it to the torch once he had done so. If his sons would not be honoured properly, he told the horrified artist, then they would not be a part of a record that glorified another. Afterwards, Rogal Dorn had offered a rich commission for the artist to repaint the predella, but the artisan wisely refused. Worlds considered by others as unbreakable were cracked open by the methodical application of the Iron Warriors' overwhelming force, yet this approach to war took a remorseless toll even on the superhuman Space Marines of the IV Legion. Gruelling preparation culminated in brief but extreme violence, and soon the Iron Warriors came to prefer a besieged defender to defy them rather than to surrender, so that the pent-up pressure of siege warfare could be released in the moment of the foe's total defeat. To make matters worse, the Iron Warriors came to be utilised as elite garrison troops, with small forces detached from the IV Legion and tasked with guarding the worlds they had worked so hard to bring to Compliance. While other Primarchs refused point-blank to see their Legions used in such a way, believing that garrison work was the task of the Imperial Army, Perturabo acceded to the duty, though with an increasing and notable lack of grace. Horus Heresy ]] As the tragic outbreak of the Horus Heresy grew closer, it appears that Perturabo was put under ever increasing pressure, and as a result the fires of his bitterness were stoked to a raging inferno. Some Imperial historians have postulated that it was Horus himself who, time after time, engineered events and adjusted deployments to the detriment of Perturabo's psyche. Whatever the truth, events came to a head when, leading his Iron Warriors on a campaign to cleanse the Hrud Warrens on the world of Gugann, the Primarch received news that his own homeworld, Olympia, had risen up in rebellion against the Imperium. Though the Tyrant Dammekos was long dead, the other Olympian demagogues had brought the people together and risen in arms against the rule of the Emperor of Mankind. The thought of being the only Primarch who could not control his own Legion's homeworld appalled Perturabo. Perturabo and the IV Legion returned to their homeworld and brutally purged Olympia of its rebels city by city, overrunning the fortresses he had built and sparing no one who stood against him. By the time the massacre was over, five million Olympians had been killed and the rest put into vicious slavery to the Iron Warriors. Perturabo looked on at the remains of his homeworld in cold silence. Only once the great pyres were burning to cleanse the world of the heaps of corpses created by the IV Legion's assault did Perturabo fully realise what he had done. The Iron Warriors were no longer the saviours of the Imperium; they had been destroying the alien Hrud one moment and yet, in the next, they were committing genocide against their own people. With the cooling of Olympia’s mass funeral pyres had come the realisation that nothing the Lord of Iron could ever do from that moment could ever atone for a worldwide genocide. His father would never forgive him so grievous a sin, but Horus had not only forgiven it, he had lauded his brother’s thoroughness and dedication. Horus had sworn Perturabo never to feel guilt over what he had done to Olympia, but that was an oath easier to make than to live by. It was at this time that disturbing news of the outbreak of the Horus Heresy on the world of Istvaan III reached Olympia and new orders for the Iron Warriors came from Terra. Leman Russ and the Space Wolves had attacked Magnus the Red and his Thousand Sons Legion on their homeworld of Prospero at the direction of the Emperor and as a result of the deceit of Horus. Horus had turned Traitor with his XVI Legion, the Sons of Horus, alongside some other allied Legions such as the Death Guard, Emperor's Children and the World Eaters. The whole of the Imperium was on the brink of an outright civil war. The new orders from the Emperor ordered the Iron Warriors to join with six other Loyalist Space Marine Legions to face Horus and his Traitor Legions on the world of Istvaan V. During the battle that followed the Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Word Bearers and Alpha Legion all went over to the side of Horus and almost completely destroyed the three remaining Loyalist Legions of the Imperial assault force -- the Iron Hands, the Salamanders and the Raven Guard -- at the infamous Drop Site Massacre on that world. In truth, Perturabo and the other Primarchs who turned Traitor on Istvaan V had already been seduced by the Warmaster and made their decision to stand with him against the Emperor, guaranteeing that the Traitors would field nine Space Marine Legions against the Loyalists. In the wake of the Drop Site Massacre, to celebrate Perturabo's decision to join his side in the conflict, Horus presented Perturabo with a Power Hammer called Forgebreaker that had been the personal weapon of the Loyalist Primarch Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands, who the Traitor Primarch Fulgrim had beheaded during the Drop Site Massacre. The granting of this boon was the embodiment of a new pact between the Warmaster and the Iron Warriors' Primarch, a gift from Horus to Perturabo intended to symbolise Perturabo and the Iron Warriors' newfound allegiance to the Warmaster rather than the Emperor. Fools claimed that Forgebreaker had sealed the pact between Horus and the Iron Warriors, but only Perturabo knew it was forgiveness that truly bound the Iron Warriors to Horus Lupercal. Hydra Cordatus during the final assault of the Hydra Cordatus campaign]] As Horus’ rebellion ground on, the Iron Warriors took the time to humble their great enemies, the Imperial Fists, upon the isolated world of Hydra Cordatus that the Sons of Dorn had recently brought into Imperial Compliance. The Iron Warriors made planetfall in the wake of a saturation bombardment that reduced the valley where the planet's lone formidable fortress, known as the Cadmean Citadel, was situated and the agri-settlements filling its fertile deltas to ash. Magma bombs and mass drivers boiled away the rivers and reduced fecund earth to arid dust. The Cadmean Citadel was left untouched, and the small garrison of Imperial Fists Legionaries that Rogal Dorn had left behind still found it difficult to believe that such a precise bombardment was possible. But the Iron Warriors had purposely done this in order to show the Imperial Fists that they were superior to them in every way. The technological cunning of the ancient fortress builders, married to the artfully wrought geography and the courage of the defenders, proceeded to keep the Iron Warriors at bay for almost three months. Every day the Loyalist warriors stayed alive, it kept the enemy from redeploying and bringing their strength to bear elsewhere against the forces of the Imperium. Yet, when the Iron Warriors finally overcame the citadel’s ancient defences and broke open its walls they ran amok. They slaughtered the remaining Imperial Fists Legionaries, the heroic men and women of Hyrdra Cordatus that had chosen to stand with them, and the refugees from the devastated fields below the fortress. Fifty-two Imperial Fists and thirteen thousand men, women and children were crammed within the citadel’s walls. When the final assault came, the Lord of Iron himself spearheaded the audacious attack upon the citadel's defenders, and slaughtered over thirty Imperial Fists Astartes in a span of only a few minutes. The rest of the Cadmean Citadel's defenders were slaughtered to a man and the surviving mortal refugees were enslaved by the Iron Warriors before they moved on to their next objective. Hydra Cordatus was reduced to a barren desert world by the Traitor Legion's assault. Angel Exterminatus Following their victory on Hydra Cordatus, word reached the Lord of Iron that Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children Legion, wished to rendezvous with him to discuss something of great import. Though the Phoenecian had yet to reveal the true purpose of his visit, he had promised Perturabo that it was "wondrous." Perturabo knew that his brother had a flair for the melodramatic, which only seemed to have gotten worse since the III Legion threw their lot in with the Warmaster. The Lord of Iron counted none of his fellow Primarchs as close, but the Phoenician’s adherence to perfection in all things had once provided common ground between the two superhuman warriors and allowed them to talk as trusted comrades-in-arms if not beloved brothers. What the Emperor’s Children had sought with constant movement towards the attainment of perfection, the Iron Warriors earned with rigid discipline and methodical planning; two divergent paths to the same ultimate goal. Perturabo believed Fulgrim's visit had something to do with Mars. The Warmaster needed the Martian theatre fully secured before they moved against Terra, and he believed that Fulgrim was there to seek the Iron Warriors' aid in breaking open the forge-cities of the Mechanicum. If he was right, Perturabo wanted his Legion to have a plan in place to achieve that objective. Until the Iron Warriors received further orders, Perturabo would humour his brother and listen to what Fulgrim had to say. While making plans for the upcoming campaign, Perturabo received word that the Emperor's Children had arrived, unannounced, on the surface of Hydra Cordatus. Over three hundred drop-craft had landed beyond the mouth of the valley where the Iron Warriors had made their encampment. The IV Legion quickly gathered in formation to honour the III Legion with a vanguard to receive them. Battalions of Thorakitai Imperial Army troops stood ranked in their tens of thousands. Before them stood two hundred Grand Battalions of Iron Warriors, fifty thousand warriors in amberdust-burnished warplate. Such a display of might and magnificence had not been seen since the slaughter unleashed upon the black sands of Istvaan V. Yet Perturabo and his senior officers looked on in awe at the gaudy cavalcade of noise, colour and spectacle that emerged from the III Legion's drop site into the valley. Fulgrim and his Emperor’s Children were now completely unrecognisable from the honourable warriors that had once formed the III Legion. Perturabo knew something fundamental had changed within the Emperor’s Children, but could not imagine what purpose the disfigurements and degradations its warriors now sported could possibly serve. Fulgrim met with his brother Primarch in the private inner sanctum of his command bunker with an enticing offer that Perturabo could not refuse; the means to make it so that the Lord of Iron's every desire could be made real and would never disappoint, never fail to live up to his fondest expectations, and never, ever be eclipsed. Fulgrim came with an offer to unite their mutual forces in battle on a glorious quest. One that might tip the balance of the Warmaster’s rebellion. Though Perturabo was suspicious of his brother's intentions, perhaps this joint venture would grant understanding through common cause. Fulgrim revealed his purpose; they were to venture to the Warp Storm that had plagued Perturabo's dreams all of his life. Within it was hidden an ancient and forbidden xenos weapon known as the Angel Exterminatus. It had been hidden in the grave of its doom, a weapon of such power that the stars themselves turned upon it rather than allow it to escape its prison. Into the Eye of Terror ]] For as long as he remembered, no matter how many thousands of light years separated him from this particular Warp Storm, Perturabo was always aware of the Eye of Terror's presence and could perceive an echo of it on every world where he had looked to the heavens. He did not know whether this Warp sight had been engineered into his perceptive apparatus deliberately, like Sanguinius’s wings or Corax’s eyes, or was simply a quirk of his genetic code, but it had been a blessing and a curse since his earliest memories. The anomaly haunted his dreams, threaded his nightmares and coloured his every thought since he had learned something of its nature. He had once asked the Iron Hands Primarch Ferrus Manus whether his silver eyes allowed similar insight, but his brother had just shaken his head and given him a look of faint scorn, as though he had just admitted to some secret weakness or vice. He had never mentioned it again. When the joint fleet of the III and IV Legions arrived at the outskirts of the stellar maelstrom, for once in his life, Perturabo looked upon it and knew that others could see it too. They did not see it quite as he saw it, but they could at least acknowledge its existence. He saw beyond its dark light to the engulfed worlds within: phantom images that ghosted in and out of perception and fleeting moments of solidity in a realm where such things were anathema. He saw planets where all reason and Euclidian certainty had been abandoned, where the physical laws that underpinned the galaxy were playthings of lunatic forces beyond mortal comprehension. And now he was to venture into its depths, following the guidance of an alien seer. Before entering the Warp Rift, Perturabo called up the astrogation charts of this region of space, reading the flickering labels of the charts' keys for those few stellar objects in this region worthy of a name. At the heart of the hologram, a vertical black label bisected the fiery orange heart of the Warp Storm. Imposed upon the bar was the name Cygnus X-1. Perturabo knew the Warp Storm was not the first spatial anomaly to bear that name, and whichever lowly scribe had scribed it again was a fool. Something this powerful and terrible deserved a name to strike fear into the hearts of all who saw it, a name that would resonate down the millennia until the end of time, when the stars went out and the only light in the universe was the nightmare glow of the maelstrom’s ever-devouring borders. Perturabo’s fingers danced over the slate from which the charts had been brought forth, and the name in the vertical black bar changed. It would change throughout the Traitor Legions' fleets, spreading to any data engine that called up maps of the galactic northwest. It was a name to lodge in the hearts of all who heard it and would eventually be adopted by the forces of the Imperium as well -- The Eye of Terror. ''Sisypheum'' Unknown to both the Iron Warriors and the Emperor's Children, they were being pursued by a ragtag group of Loyalist Astartes who were survivors of the Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V and were determined to stop the Traitors at all costs. These Loyalist Space Marines were gathered from survivors that had fought their way out of the killing ground of the Urgall Depression on Istvaan V. They had managed to escape the Istvaan System aboard an Iron Hands Strike Cruiser known as the Sisypheum. Iron Hands Astartes and their mortal serfs formed the bulk of the warship's crew, but surviving warriors of the Salamanders and a single Raven Guard Astartes were also counted among their number. In the wake of the slaughter, escape from the Istvaan System had been a nerve shredding series of mad dashes under fire and silent runs through the Traitors' orbital blockade, culminating in a final sprint to the gravipause, the minimum safe distance between a star’s mass and a vessel’s ability to survive a Warp Jump. The Sisypheum had escaped the trap, but not without great cost. The months that followed saw the Sisypheum embark on a series of hit-and-run attacks on Traitor forces on the northern frontiers of the galaxy, wreaking harm like a lone predator swimming in a dark ocean. Traitor forces seeking flanking routes through the Segmentum Obscurus were their prey; scout craft, cartographae ships, slow-moving supply hulks heavily laden with mortal troops, ammunition and weapons. Disruption and harassment were the Sisypheum's main objective until contact had been established with disparate groups of Loyalist forces that had also escaped the massacre, and a stratagem of sorts agreed upon. With the X Legion too scattered to function in a traditional battlefield role, its surviving commanders found their own way to fight back: as the thorns in the flanks of the leviathan that distract it from the swordthrust to the vitals. At Cavor Sarta, an Iron Hand known as Sabak Wayland and the lone Raven Guard survivor Nykona Sharrowkyn had captured an Unlingual Cipher Host -- one of the so-called "Kryptos" -- a hybrid abomination creature of the Dark Mechanicum that had previously made the Traitors' code network a cryptographic impossibility to break. With the Kryptos, Loyalist commanders were able to finally access the Traitors’ coded communications. And with this knowledge, the Sisypheum's Captain, the Iron Hand Ulrach Branthan, had ordered the Sisypheum to make the circuitous journey to Hydra Cordatus and the meeting of the Traitor Primarchs that had been indicated by the cracked communications. After learning of Fulgrim's intentions to enter the Eye of Terror and recover the Angel Exterminatus, the crew of the Sisypheum made their way towards the Warp Rift, aided by a mysterious Eldar guide with the intention of thwarting the Traitors' plan to acquire the unknown xenos weapon. Crone World The destination of the joint fleet of Iron Warriors and Emperor's Children vessels was the lost Eldar world of Iydris, a world said to have been favoured by the goddess Lileath. Iydris was one of the legendary Crone Worlds, which once formed the heart of the lost Eldar empire before they were consumed by the creation of the vast Warp Rift that was the Eye of Terror following the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh. The lost world was located at the heart of the Eye of Terror, somehow remaining in a fixed position keeping it from destruction in the gravitational hellstorm of a supermassive black hole that lay at the centre of the eternal Warp Storm. It was from this epicentre that the galaxy vomited unnatural matter into the void, a dark doorway to an unknowable destination and an unimaginably powerful singularity whose gravity was so strong that it consumed light, matter, space and time in its destructive core. Their ultimate goal was within the Primarchs' grasp; the Sepulchre of Isha's Doom, which sat at the centre of the citadel of Amon ny-shak Kaelis. The citadel stood astride the entrance to the prison tomb of the Angel Exterminatus. Before launching a full planetary assault, the Iron Warriors launched a preliminary orbital bombardment around the citadel, a standard practise when preparing to assault a potentially hostile environment. A cone of fire gouged the surface of Iydris, burning, pounding and flattening in the blink of an eye structures that had stood inviolate for tens of thousands of Terran years. A barren ring of pulverised earth encircled the citadel of Amon ny-shak Kaelis, leaving its walls, towers and temples an isolated island cut off from the rest of the planet’s structures by a billowing firestorm of planet-cracking force. In the wake of this orbital bombardment flocks of Thunderhawks, Stormbirds, Warhawks and heavy planetary landers launched from crammed embarkation decks. Bulk tenders descended to low orbit and disgorged thousands of troop carriers, armour lifters and supply barques. Titanic, gravity-cushioned mass-landers moved with majestic slowness as two Titans of the Legio Mortis took to the field, and this was but the first wave of the invasion. Another eight would follow before the martial power of two entire Space Marine Legions and their auxiliary Imperial Army forces had made planetfall. ''Amon ny-shak Kaelis'' fight for their lives against an army of Eldar revenants within the Sepulchre of Isha's Doom at the heart of the citadel of Amon ny-shak Kaelis]] The Traitors' assault began five hours later, despite the full circuit of fortifications still being incomplete. The landing zone was almost surrounded, but the encircling walls had yet to meet one another. Layered rings of minefields and acres of razorwire spread from the outer faces of the walls, making the approach next to impossible for anyone without detailed maps and temporary dormancy codes. Leaving Warsmith Toramino and five thousand Iron Warriors to oversee the completion of the siege works and establish battery positions for the guns of the IV Legion's Stor-bezashk, Perturabo climbed to the cupola of his converted Shadowsword super-heavy tank, the Tormentor. The Iron Warriors had come in force and the Emperor's Children no less so. Like Perturabo, Fulgrim rode at the head of his army, a warrior god in impossibly bright armour. His brother might have ceded control of this mission to him, but Fulgrim was making sure he was still its figurehead. For all intents and purposes, the route into the citadel of Amon ny-shak Kaelis was undefended and their route unopposed. Ever mistrustful of the lack of defences, Perturabo had his Iron Warriors dug in, assuming a perfect formation outside the walls in a layered barbican that protected the Traitor Legions' line of retreat. Fulgrim’s host broke apart into individual warbands, ranging in size from around a hundred warriors to groups of nearly a thousand. Each of these autonomous groups appeared to be led by a captain, though such was the bizarre ornamentation and embellishment on each warrior’s armour, it was often impossible to discern specific rankings. Leaving the fortified bridgehead behind, Perturabo led his Iron Warriors and the Emperor’s Children contingent into the heart of Amon ny-shak Kaelis. The Sepulchre of Isha’s Doom was a monumental palace, sprawling and richly ornamented with bulbous mourn-towers and sweeping, ivory-roofed domes. As the column of Traitors pressed onwards towards the sepulchre, they were being silently and unknowingly observed by the Loyalist Astartes of the Sisypheum. Despite being outnumbered a thousand to one, the small force of Loyalist Legionaries devised a means to find another way into the massive sepulchre. As the two Primarchs neared their ultimate goal, Fulgrim kept pressing his stern brother with curt impatience to not linger. Perturabo took the time to study Fulgrim and his assembled host. His brother was sheened in sweat, but it was not perspiration that beaded his brow, Fulgrim was sweating light. Though it was faint, it was visible to Perturabo's gene-enhanced sight that saw beyond what even Astartes eyes were capable of detecting. He wondered if Fulgrim was aware of the radiance bleeding from him and decided he must be. His brother’s armour strained against his body and his features were drawn and tired, as though only by an effort of will was he still standing. His captains looked no better, like hounds straining at the leash. A number of Fulgrim's Lord Commanders' flesh was also suffused with a light similar to that enveloping Fulgrim, a deathly radiance that had no place within a living being. Perturabo did not trust Fulgrim one bit, knowing that inevitably he would be betrayed by his brother. The Lord of Iron pressed on, intent on bringing their quest to completion. As they neared their final destination at the heart of the sepulchre, the power at the heart of Iydris spasmed in hateful recognition of the followers of Slaanesh, known to the Eldar as She Who Thirsts, and awoke its guardians from their slumber. Thousands of crystalline statues threw off their previous immobility. They moved stiffly, like sleepers awoken from an aeons-long slumber, and the gems at the heart of their bulbous heads bled vibrant colour into glassy bodies that suddenly seemed significantly less fragile. This army of wraiths were the Eldar dead of Iydris. Soon both the Traitor forces outside the citadel as well as those inside were attacked from all sides by the revenant army. Like automata, but with a hideously organic feel to their movements, the Eldar constructs emerged in their thousands with every passing second. As Perturabo was busy fighting for his life, Fulgrim slipped away in the midst of the fighting. Realising where he had gone, the Lord of Iron stepped into the green glow emanating from the centre of the massive chamber. Perturabo understood that this was no elemental energy or mechanically generated motive force, but the distilled essence of all those who had died there. Perturabo descended downwards on an unending spiral towards a point of light that grew no brighter no matter how far he descended. The journey downwards was never-ending, or so it seemed until it ended. Fulgrim stood at the origin of a slender bridge that arched out to the centre of a spherical chamber of incredible, sanity-defying proportions. The footings of the bridge were anchored on the equator, and a score of other bridges reached out to where a seething ball of numinous jade light blazed like a miniature sun. Iydris, it transpired, was a hollow world, its core this colossal void with the impossibly bright sun at its heart. Perturabo confronted his brother, realising that there was never an Angel Exterminatus. Fulgrim confirmed for Perturabo that there was no such weapon yet, for he was to be the Angel Exterminatus. Perturabo responded that his brother always did have an appetite for rampant narcissism, but this was the grandest delusion yet. Unamused at Fulgrim's explanation, Perturabo took a step towards his brother, Forgebreaker in his hand, intent on killing him. Fulgrim spoke a single word, its nightmare syllables tore at Perturabo's brain, causing him to stumble and drop to one knee. Fulgrim revealed the reason for his brother being drained of energy. When Fulgrim had arrived on Hydra Cordatus he had presented the Lord of Iron with a gift; a folded cloak of softest ermine, trimmed with foxbat fur and embroidered with an endlessly repeating pattern of spirals in the golden proportion. A flattened skull of chromed steel acted as the fastener. Set in the skull’s forehead was a gemstone the size of a fist, black and veined with hair-fine threads of gold. As they had made their way towards the heart of the Eye of Terror, the large gemstone at the centre of the skull-carved cloak pin had changed from black to a solid gold colour and pulsed with its own internal heartbeat. This was the maugetar stone, known as the harvester, which had slowly been draining Perturabo's strength and life force. With the Lord of Iron's sacrifice, Fulgrim would finally be able to achieve apotheosis. The two Primarchs ascended upwards within the shaft of light, emerging into the chaos that was happening within the heart of the sepulchre. Apotheosis of Fulgrim of his patron god Slaanesh]] The Primarch of the Emperor’s Children hurled his brother aside, and Perturabo fell in a languid arc to land with a crunch of metal and crystal at the edge of the shaft. Blood trailed the air in a streaming red arc from Perturabo’s chest. The Lord of Iron lay unmoving, his body broken and lifeless. The attention of every Astartes within the chamber was irrevocably drawn towards the Primarch, for they recognised that an event of great moment was in the offing. The Phoenician was no longer the same being as had descended into the planet. He floated in the air above the shaft, which no longer poured its green torrent up to the restless darkness above, but simply radiated a fading glow of dying light. Fulgrim’s armour was shimmering with vitality, as though the light of a thousand suns were contained within him and strained to break free. The Primarch’s dark, doll-like eyes were twin black holes, doorways to heights of experience and sensation the likes of which could only be dreamed by madmen and those willing to go to any lengths to taste them. Just as Fulgrim was about to achieve his ultimate desire, Perturabo had regained enough of his former strength and rose to his feet, the maugetar stone in his hand. Perturabo walked towards Fulgrim, keeping the hand holding the maugetar stone extended over the shaft in the center of the chamber. Perturabo looked his brother in the eye for some hint of remorse, a sign that he regretted that things had come to this, something to show he felt even a moment of shame at plotting to murder his brother. He saw nothing, and his heart broke to know that the Fulgrim he had known long ago was gone, never to return. He had not thought it possible that anyone could plunge so far as to be beyond redemption. Perturabo knew that Fulgrim no longer wanted to be an angel, he wanted to be a god. He informed the Phoenician that Mankind had outgrown such beings a long time ago. Disgusted by Fulgrim's desires, Perturabo hurled the maugetar stone into the deep shaft. Suddenly, a barrage of Bolter fire erupted and a handful of Emperor's Children Astartes were pitched from their feet. Black-armoured Space Marines bearing a mailed fist upon their shoulder guards charged towards the Traitors. It was the Astartes of the X Legion -- the Iron Hands. Soon the battle was joined, as Loyalist fought Traitor within the expansive chamber. The noose of battle was closing on the two Primarchs at its centre -- Perturabo locked on his knees, and Fulgrim hovering in the air as though bound to his brother by ties not even the call of war could break. The Iron Hands were mired in battle with the Emperor’s Children and Iron Warriors, zipping streams of fire blasting back and forth between them. During the battle, one of the Loyalist Astartes, the Raven Guard named Sharrowkyn, had acquired the fallen maugetar stone. He instinctively knew that if this stone was desired by Fulgrim, then it had to be destroyed. Taking a Bolter from a fallen Emperor's Children Astartes, he aimed the muzzle at the strange gold and black stone and pulled the trigger. The weakened Perturabo was renewed with the sudden release of his lifeforce from the Chaotic relic. Fulgrim’s body arched in sympathetic resonance, for the maugetar stone contained more than just the strength stolen from Perturabo by Fulgrim. It contained their mingled essences, a power greater than the sum of its parts, a power to fuel an ascent so brutal that only the combined life-force of two Primarchs could achieve it. Armour burned from Fulgrim’s body, flaking away like golden dust in a hurricane, leaving his monstrously swollen body naked and his flesh blazing with furnace heat. Spectral flames of shimmering pink and purple licked around his body, a hungry fire waiting to consume him the moment his focus slipped. As the Lord of Iron finally pushed himself upright and stood fully erect, he lifted Forgebreaker onto his shoulder. Fulgrim saw his death in Perturabo's eyes and grinned, knowing that his brother had to do it. Perturabo hefted Forgebreaker ''like a headsman at an execution and swung the mighty hammer in a wide arc, splitting the Phoenician's body wide open. It was done. Fulgrim, champion of Slaanesh]] Fulgrim’s body exploded under the impact of Perturabo’s warhammer, and the cry of release was a shrieking birth scream. An explosion of pure force ripped from the Phoenician’s destroyed flesh, filling the chamber of towers with a blinding light that was too bright to look upon, too radiant to ignore. Like a newborn sun, the wondrous incandescence was the centre of all things, a rebirth in fire, new flesh crafted from the ashes of the old. Every eye in the chamber was turned to the light, though it would surely blind them or drive them to madness. Through slitted fingers and shimmering reflections, the survivors of the fighting bore witness to something magnificent and terrible, an agonising death and violent birth combined. A figure floated in the midst of the light, and it took a moment for Perturabo to recognise the impossibility of what he was seeing. It was Fulgrim, naked and pristine, his body unsullied by any of the mawkish ornamentations with which he had defaced his flesh, as perfect as the day the Emperor had first conceived him. Fulgrim’s back arched and his bones split with gunshot cracks. His flesh, once so perfect, now ran fluid and malleable, his form moulding and remoulding as though an invisible sculptor pressed and worked him like clay upon a wheel. Fulgrim’s legs, extended like the man of Vitruvius, ran and lengthened, fusing together in a writhing serpent’s tail, the skin thickening and sheening with reptilian scales and segmented plates of chitinous armour. Perturabo took a step towards this thing being born from the death of his brother, all the while despairing that this ''was his brother. Perturabo had destroyed Fulgrim’s mortal shell. This was an immaterial avatar of light and energy, of soul and desire. What was being done here was an act of will, a creature birthing itself through its own desire to exist. Fulgrim’s face was a mask of agonised rapture, a pain endured for the pleasure it promised. Two obsidian horns erupted from Fulgrim’s brow, curling back over his skull, leaving his perfect face as unsullied as the most innocent child. Fulgrim ascended into Chaos, a prince of the Neverborn, a lord of the Ruinous Powers, the chosen and beloved Champion of Slaanesh. As the newborn Daemon Prince departed, the first of the Traitor Primarchs to achieve daemonic apotheosis, he left his brother with a cryptic message that they would one day meet again, and both brothers would yet renew their bonds. Lifting his hands into the air, a curtain of light rose up from the ground and Fulgrim and all of his Emperor's Children Chaos Space Marines disappeared in a flare of arcane teleportation energy. With the disappearance of the Emperor's Children, the Crone World of Iydris began to tear itself apart. The force at the heart of the world was no more. The strength of the lifeforces of the dead Eldar that had kept it safe was failing, and soon this planet would be swallowed by the unimaginable force of the supermassive black hole that lay at the heart of the Eye of Terror. Across the chasm, the remaining Iron Hands gathered up their wounded and fell back from the spreading fissures and heaving ruptures opening in the floor. They looked upon Perturabo with hatred, but decided to make their way off-world from the doomed planet. They knew that they could not fight the Lord of Iron and live through the encounter. Perturabo let the Iron Hands depart. Then he led his warriors out of the crumbling citadel. Once aboard his flagship the Iron Blood, Perturabo watched the final death throes of the Eldar Crone World. The Iron Blood strained to break orbit, but the force at the heart of the Eye of Terror was reasserting its grip on reality with a vengeance. Many of the smaller vessels of the Iron Warriors survivor fleet that had followed the Sisypheum had already been dragged within its embrace, swallowed by the black hole’s powerful energies. Only the capital ships had engines large enough to resist the inexorable pull, but even they were only delaying the inevitable. Perturabo's Triarchs stood patiently around their lord, awaiting his orders. The Lord of Iron informed them that he always moved forward, never backwards. They would go into the black hole. Though his senior commanders believed that it was suicide, the Lord of Iron informed them that Fulgrim had promised that the two brothers would meet again. The Iron Warriors were not meant to die within the Eye, and there was only one way onwards. His men moved to carry out his order, and the Iron Warriors fleet plunged deep into the heart of Terror. Battle of Terra Following the terrible events within the Eye of Terror, the Iron Warriors were let loose on the Imperium as full devotees of Chaos and Perturabo relished the opportunity to fight in a way that did not rely on massive sieges and grinding trench warfare. Because of their widespread deployment throughout the galaxy, dozens of Iron Warriors Warsmiths (Grand Battalion commanders) conquered Imperial planets and demanded tithes to support the Heresy. While one part of the IV Legion turned Olympia and its surrounding star systems into an Empire of Iron, a large contingent of the Iron Warriors accompanied Perturabo to Terra alongside the rest of the Traitor Legions in the climactic Battle of Terra where he supervised the bombardment and siege of the Emperor's Imperial Palace by the Forces of Chaos. Perturabo took a perverse pleasure in tearing down the defences set up by Rogal Dorn and his hated Imperial Fists. It cannot be known whether Dorn’s masterfully constructed defences would have proved the undoing of the Iron Warriors, for Horus was slain by the Emperor before the matter could be fully determined. Post-Heresy Battle of the Iron Cage attack another Imperial world]] After fleeing Terra along with the otherChaos Space Marine Traitor Legions following Horus' death, Perturabo took the opportunity to take vengeance on the Imperial Fists with a specially-designed trap on the world of Sebastus IV. The trap was known as the Eternal Fortress, a massive keep centred within twenty square miles of bunkers, towers, minefields, trenches, tank traps and redoubts that were intentionally shaped to look like an 8-pointed Star of Chaos. Upon hearing of the existence of this supposedly impregnable redoubt maintained by his Legion's hated rivals, Rogal Dorn publicly declared that he "would dig Perturabo out of his hole and bring him back to Terra in an iron cage." Rogal Dorn expected an honourable battle, but this was not to be. Beginning by isolating the four companies of the Imperial Fists that arrived to do battle from their orbital support, Perturabo began to carefully divide his enemy and destroy them piecemeal. Some Imperial Fists managed to penetrate the defences and reach the centre of the Eternal Fortress, only to find there was no central keep - simply an open space watched by yet more defenses. The fortress was a decoy of no real value, surrounded by twenty miles of killing ground. By the sixth day of the siege, Imperial Fists Space Marines were fighting individually, without support, using the bodies of their own battle brothers for cover. The siege of the Eternal Fortress, later referred to in Imperial histories simply as the Battle of the Iron Cage, lasted for a further three weeks. Relief came in the form of Roboute Guilliman and his Ultramarines, who drove off the Iron Warriors, but the siege left Rogal Dorn a broken man and rendered the Imperial Fists Chapter unable to fight for nineteen standard years while they rebuilt their forces. The gene-seed of over 400 Imperial Fists was captured by the Iron Warriors in the Iron Cage and later sacrificed to the nefarious purposes of the Dark Gods, an accomplishment for which Perturabo was also finally elevated to the rank of Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided by the rare acclamation of the Ruinous Powers. Following this victory, the Iron Warriors fled to the Eye of Terror alongside their fellow Traitor Marines and secured a new Daemon World named Medrengard, crafting a terrible daemonic Fortress World where his sons ruled a miserable slave population from vast citadels of iron and stone. Today, the Iron Warriors give their greatest loyalty to Perturabo for saving them from what they believe was an unwarranted sacrifice in the name of the False Emperor of Mankind. Traits Though Perturabo had spent his entire life at the business end of a siege, digging trenches and razing cities, it was easy for his fellow Primarchs to forget he possessed a mind as advanced and genenhanced as any of his brothers. The Lord of Iron might not possess the Warp-lore of Magnus the Red or the war-craft of Horus, but being underestimated was one of his greatest weapons. Furthermore, he was gifted with an affinity for technology, and was able to debate the finer points of the most esoteric arts with the highest placed Adepts of the Mechanicum. Though Perturabo possessed a calculating mind well-suited to the highly technical aspects of siege warfare, he was not a simple journeyman, for he also possessed the soul of a craftsman. Over the centuries, Perturabo had created a precisely ordered collection of genius to rival any work of Magnus or Roboute Guilliman. His inner sanctum contained a superb collection of precisely reconstructed stonework, multiple murals and painted works of art as well as hundreds of rolled parchments containing architectural wonders of his own design. Immense drawing desks bore architectural plans for grand pavilions, magnificent amphitheatres, complex industrial infrastructures, vast hives of habitation, impregnable citadels and ornate palaces to rival that of the mountain fastness of the Emperor Himself. No architect of Terra had ever envisaged structures of such grandeur, and no fantasy of design had thought to render such magical buildings into life. That they had sprung from the hand of the Lord of Iron should have surprised no one, but the idea that a being so mired in destruction was capable of sublime creation seemed beyond comprehension. One of Perturabo's most notable examples was the design of the amphitheatre used during the Council of Nikaea. Though it was eradicated from existence not long after the conclusion of council, it still caused him great shame. It had never been intended as a place of trial and censure, but an arena for mighty games of strength and skill. The use the Emperor had made of his creation shamed Perturabo. Perturabo's genius was not only confined to the drawing board, for he had also crafted hundreds of delicately wrought machines, trinkets and gewgaws of such fine construction that it seemed impossible one so huge had modelled them. A silver lyre in the shape of a horse’s head, gilded eggs, fabulously wrought birdcages that would never again confine a living creature, and miniature war machines competed for space alongside automata of all shapes and description -- animal, mechanical, human and alien. Perturabo had created a host of clockwork automatons in the early days of the Great Crusade. He had crafted a golden lion that was to be presented to Lion El'Jonson, the master of the Dark Angels, but which had never been finished, a bronze horse that had been designed for a great centrepiece at Nikaea and never used and a celestial timepiece that Roboute Guilliman had mounted on the tallest tower of his Temple of Correction on Macragge. Perturabo's inner sanctum was a treasure trove of wonders, miraculous creations and the most ancient history of Old Earth preserved in a hermetically sealed environment. None beyond the warriors of his Trident, his special triumvirate of counselors, knew of its existence, and that was just the way Perturabo liked it. The Lord of Iron was also able to speak multiple xenos languages, which included a number of dialects of the Eldar tongue as well as the proto-speech of guttural barks and grunts that comprised the Ork language. Personality Exacting attention to detail served Perturabo well in his centuries of life. In war and at peace, he revelled in the minutiae of any given task, be it reducing an alien fortress to rubble or establishing the golden ratio within every portion of a theoretical design. Angron had berated him for wasting time on irrelevant details, while Guilliman had lauded him for his thoroughness. Two very different characters, two very different opinions. Both were correct in their own way, but neither fully appreciated Perturabo's methodology or the bitter drive behind his exacting preferences. The need to be better, the urge to prove his worth beyond taking the metal to the stone. Perturabo was a craftsman, and to be worthy of the appellation, every piece of work that bore his name must be judged for as long as it stood. His legacy was to leave no undertaking unfinished. Every task was approached as though it might be his last. Despite his gruff exterior and stoic demeanour, Perturabo showed a paternal affection for his gene-wrought sons, though on a far more reserved level than displayed by the Primarchs of the other Space Marine Legions. In manners of discipline, the Lord of Iron was not a warrior who dealt with his subordinates with the easy familiarity some of the other Primarchs were said to enjoy. Perturabo was also known to be an honourable warrior, who believed in the ancient martial traditions of his homeworld of Olympia. Failure in battle was not tolerated, surrender was never countenanced and mercy was a quick death delivered to a foe that had fought with bravery. But the Primarch’s anger was a volatile thing, quick to lash out, but just as quickly checked. When the people of Olympia rebelled against the rule of the Iron Warriors, Perturabo's anger was terrible to behold. In the aftermath of his genocidal vengeance, Perturabo knew utter despair, barely able to comprehend the crimes he had committed in his rage. It had come as a shock to find that the loyalty of a Primarch was not the fixed thing Perturabo had always assumed it to be. But like all such realisations, it was incorporated into a new worldview, and once assimilated, a series of small steps was all it took to render everything he had once stood for as little more than a fading dream. Perturabo had vowed that his oath to the Warmaster Horus to support his cause against the Emperor would be truly unbreakable, no matter the cost, no matter the nature of the fight and no matter the outcome. Unlike many of his brothers, Perturabo did not hate the Legions that had remained true to the Emperor. They were tools with which their father had carved out his empire, warriors as abused as Perturabo’s sons, but too stubborn or too blind to see the nature of their exploitation by the Master of Mankind. The Lord of Iron also did not like his men speaking of those that still followed the Emperor as "Loyalists," for his Legion had been as loyal as any to their cause. The Emperor's Astartes were the enemy. In Horus' rebellion, Perturabo believed that there was no such thing as Loyalist or Traitor, only victor and vanquished. Following the massacre on Olympia, Perturabo's humours had become ever more volatile and unforgiving. It was rumoured that the Warsmith Berossus had come to horrifying injuries at the hand of his Primarch following his misfortune of having to deliver bad news to the Lord of Iron. His injuries were so horrific, he had to be interred within a life-sustaining casket within the carapace of a Dreadnought. Since the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V, Perturabo had become a giant of terrible rages and spontaneous violence. Despite appearing at ease around his subordinates, those who knew him best saw the underlying simmering tension in the Primarch’s body, like a taut cable at the very limit of its tensile strength, ready to strike at a moment's notice. Wargear *'Artificer Terminator Armour' - Perturabo wore a highly modified suit of Artificer Cataphractii Pattern Terminator Armour, the heavy layered ceramite looking more at home on a tank than on a Primarch. *''Forgebreaker'' - Forgebreaker was an exquisite warhammer crafted by Fulgrim for his brother Ferrus Manus beneath Mount Narodnya, the greatest forge of the Ural Mountains on Terra. Forgebreaker was the length of a mortal man, its haft fashioned from an alloy that was as unbreakable as it was unknown, patterned like marble, veined with lightning and capped by an amber pommel stone set with a slitted eye of jet. The head of the hammer was steel and gold, its rear razor-spiked, the killing face flat and murderous. Following the death of Ferrus at the hands of Fulgrim during the Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V, Warmaster Horus presented this formidable weapon to Perturabo as a symbolic gesture of the Iron Warriors' newfound allegiance to the Warmaster rather than the Emperor. *'Wrist-Mounted Combi-Bolter' - This wrist-mounted Combi-bolter is a variation on the ubiquitous Space Marine weapon. Its magazines are loaded with heavy, custom-fabricated Bolter rounds, able to punch through Space Marine battle plate with plasmic armour-piercing warheads which used the victims' body mass as bio-thermic fuel. These unfortunate victims would ignite like human pyres with every detonation. *''Tormentor'' - Tormentor was a converted Shadowsword super-heavy tank, with additional armour plating on all sides and extended command and control functions. To accommodate the Lord of Iron’s scale and his automaton bodyguards, the vehicle’s superstructure and engine had been radically overhauled by the Pneumachina. Its main weapons were enhanced, and no more effective a killing machine existed in the Iron Warriors Legion’s vehicle pool. Sources *''Codex: Chaos Space Marines'' (6th Edition), pg. 22 *''Codex: Chaos'' (2nd Edition), pg. 16 *''Deathwatch: First Founding'' (RPG), pp. 92-94 *''Horus Heresy: Collected Visions'', pp. 70, 188, 226, 286, 330, 334, 342-343, 352 *''Index Astartes I'', "Bitter and Twisted - The Iron Warriors Space Marine Legion" pp. 32-36 *''White Dwarf'' 274 (US), "Iron Within, Iron Without" *''White Dwarf'' 257 (AUS), "Index Astartes – Iron Warriors" *''Fulgrim'' (Novel) by Graham McNeill, pp. 126, 327, 355, 402, 410 *''Fallen Angels'' (Novel) by Mike Lee, pg. 315 *''The First Heretic'' (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, pp. 319-320, 370, 374 *''Angel Exterminatus'' (Novel) by Graham McNeill Category:P Category:Chaos Category:Chaos Characters Category:Chaos Space Marines Category:Characters Category:Daemons Category:History Category:Imperial History Category:Primarchs Category:Iron Warriors